We’re thrilled to be able to share with you an excerpt from Finding Jake by Bryan Reardon, courtesy of William Morrow publishers! Reardon will be visiting Mystery Lovers Bookshop this Saturday, November 21st for a Coffee & Crime discussion.
“Finding Jake is compelling psychological suspense — but also so much more. A journey into the depths of a parent’s worst nightmare, it is at turns heartbreaking, surprising, devastating, hopeful… I’ll be thinking about this one for a long time to come.” — Alison Gaylin, USA Today bestselling author of Stay With Me
Prologue
My name is Simon Connolly. You may have heard of my son, Jake. Most people have, but they don’t know him. Not really.
As for me, they don’t know me, either. I’m not even sure why I’m still here. I can barely stand up, let alone venture beyond the front door. If I let such a simple effort beat me, I’m not sure what’s left.
As I step outside, the sun warms the too-tight skin of my face. Although the air is gentle, inviting, the season has not changed. It remains the bleakest winter imaginable and the toes of my New Balance push dried leaves across the pavement. Each sound stirring memories too fresh to accept.
So much has happened that I struggle to envision the next day, the next hour even. But going to the mailbox draws my focus to a pinpoint intensity and gives me purpose. Neither necessity nor curiosity provides the motivation. On the contrary, my driving force is a last desperate attempt to embrace banality. Get the mail, I tell myself, like before.
I never could have imagined that an oversize purple envelope, resting in that box, could contain such a bright glimmer of hope. I don’t even notice it until I am back inside; but, when I do see it, when my eyes focus and I read the name written on the front in young, bubbly script, my heart stutters. It is addressed to my son.
Maybe someone out there knows him better than I thought.
Chapter 1
Jake: Eight Months Before His Birth
It all started with a fateful decision and the most wonderful news of my life, not necessarily in that order. On a gray day in late February, the kind of day that makes everyone wish Christmas lights still hung from their neighbors’ tree branches, my wife called me at my office.
“I took it,” she said.
I knew that by “it” she meant a pregnancy test. In the movies, the wife always calls saying I have to tell you something, brace yourself. In reality, my wife and I had been married for five years, and engaged for three before that. I’m not saying that I was so in tune with her womanly cycle that I knew she was late before she did. What I am saying is that there is much less surprise when it comes to married couples’ privates than the movies like to admit.
“And,” I said.
“Don’t sound so excited.” She laughed.
I cleared my throat and tried again in my effortless deadpan. “I feel like my heart is going to jump out of my chest.”
“Cliché.” She laughed even harder.
Only one person, my wife, knew I wanted to be a writer. An English minor in college, she felt compelled to critique me on occasion, but she was always unflaggingly supportive of this hidden dream of mine. She’d buy me “How to” writing books and fancy fountain-type pens for Valentine’s Day.
[bctt tweet=”Read an excerpt of Finding Jake by @Reardon_author!”]
“Caught again.”
“Look, not by phone. Let’s go get some lunch.”
“Sure.” I really just wanted to know if I was going to be a dad, but the suggestion of lunch pretty much clued me in on what I expected to be good news. “Where?”
“Fancy. How about Blue Coast? Noon?”
“I’ll meet you at the restaurant. Love you.”
“I love you, too, Simon. And I’m pregnant.” She hung up.
I wanted to call her right back, to laugh and talk too loudly about the news, but I knew that wasn’t how this had to work. My wife had an agenda. Not in a bad way, just a very deliberate way. This monumental news must be celebrated with a lavish meal and discussed in hushed tones while surrounded by opulence. This was not meant in a showy manner, more like an artist applying color to a canvas. She was painting our memory and I was all for it.
Blue Coast was about as hip a restaurant as Wilmington, Delaware, could support. Although it would be lost in the midrange mediocrity of a city like New York or Chicago, it tried its hardest and rose above the mom-and-pop Italian places and the vanilla chain restaurants that most of Delaware favored. Instead, Blue Coast had that not-quite- Wilmington look with its minimalist architecture and deep, rich, but subtle colors. Soft but modern alternative music piped through the hidden speakers and men and women in business suits sat at two-tops, some leaning forward and whispering intimately about love or money, others leaning back and scoping out the room to see who was who and who wasn’t…
This excerpt published here with permission of William Morrow.
Click here for more information on Finding Jake…
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